For each of us on the spectrum the social communication issues are different… I’m face blind, didn’t process faces and bodies as a whole or get simultaneous processing of self/other until my 30s, am still context blind, 30% meaning deaf (at best), my prosody is sometimes odd because my word retrieval is sometimes mechanical and I have to try harder to keep my syntax intact…. and so my social style has remnants of these things… it makes me socially ‘klunky’, ‘out of sync’, even though I’m warm, friendly, empathic, highly sensing.

Others on the spectrum have other reasons for their social communication issues. What’s going on in your social communication and how do you work with it, advocate for it, stay ‘out there’?

How many of you are friendly to people but you somehow just weird them out? How does it make you feel? How do you feel watching other people get to know each other and somehow it all goes so much more smoothly? How do you feel as everyone pairs off and you are, as always ‘the wierdo left on the shelf’?

Marie Davis
I so identify with this! I also understand why “the humans” (as I call NTs) act that way, after spending a weekend with a particularly annoying Aspie I do get why the humans avoid our kind.

Donna Williams
I’m generally not annoying, just perplexing.

Carmel Anne Jones
It upsets me when I weird people out because it certainly isn’t my intention. I used to be very envious of people who always seemed to be able to say the right thing but now I know that nobody can do that all the time.

Laurie Morgen
the constant pain of being misread and misunderstood is one of those lifelong hurts that other people (read NT) don’t understand.

Line Bergli
Stigmatised.

Richard Maguire
I so want to get on with people and not be negatively judged when I don’t behave just the way they expect.

Katy Harrison
I have given up with people!

Jane Waterman
People suck, basically.

Susan Mann
It is very tiresome, really. On the other hand, I too, can only tolerate so long in other people.

Alyson Bradley AsPlanet
Given up worrying what others think, I let it be their problem and get on with being me, a little weird, crazy, mad all just words, I am simply uniquely me like everyone is and I so do not want to be crammed in a box with everyone else 🙂

Love Sanchez-Suarez
i just hang out with very few people face to face (mostly just dh) and have some close friends online; it works ok for me.

Marie Richardson
That is exactly what it’s like, Donna. And so many times it seems to me I am doing the same things they are doing — only it’s obviously working for them and I have no idea what I did ‘wrong’ again. On the other hand, I’ve spent enough time with many super-annoying humans to see merit in avoiding their kind, too.

Libby Board
Most weeks I would agree with the above comments….people can really be cruel and suck the happiness out of you and leave you isolated and wanting to give up on the world……however through my bf, of which his many roles is my social facilitator, have met some pretty amazing quirky individuals….who often tend to be artists, musicians, creative minded people….who are often a bit left of center themselves. Accepting people do exist, but like diamonds you have to look harder to find them amongst the coal.

Devlyn Rhys Young
i have finally found some friends who accept my weirdness as just part of me and it’s ok… mostly bc i accept their unique ways of interpreting life.

Marie Davis
I think we do have to be aware of two very important things – our facial expressions, and what we talk about. Rabbitting on and on about a particular topic is fun for us, but extremely painful to others. I think we’re often completely unaware of it and therefore alienate people without knowing why.

Vickie Priscina
Thats why my son fits with his friends . Being around them it is like they are speaking another language. They talk about thier role playing or games or computer. With others he has learnt not to speak for fear awkwardness ? He is not Autistic but has Aspergers.

Marie Davis
I think you’re right Vickie, if an Aspie can find others with a similar interest they will not seem out of place because everyone is talking about that topic.

Nora Watts
It makes me feel like a flop as a human being. I want to be something else. Then someone comes along and gets me and its not so bad being a HB

Marie Davis
That’s why I don’t call myself a human being haha. We are our own species.

Phil Schwarz
I like what the Amish call the majority that surrounds them: the “crazy English” 🙂

Trish Jubb
Libby says “social facilitator” and I guess that is what I tend to need too. I have a couple of friends who kind of filter out the difficulties without anyone else noticing so I am able to go to social things without too much trouble. But on my own I now tend to stick around certain groups such as artists who will accept me being different. When I try and go back in a normal group on my own I realise just how different I am.

Keren Jontof-Hutter
Thank you Donna for communicating these feelings and thoughts to the mainstream as it is one step towards understanding, then hopefully empathy!!!

John W Knapp
I also like your lyrics, *We ask that weird, be not synonymous with feared. I’m kind of weird; I don’t want people afraid of me because of it. I think you, also having an ASD likely understand all too well.

Deborah Ivy Thorsos
I understand and am used to weirdness as an artist who is daughter of late father with ASD and also living where I do in 2011.

Fleur Wiorkowski
I actually tell people they will find me really strange – but also fairly nice . . . I figure if they know that they will not be surprised and not act weird . . .it usually works

Jeannine Petrilak
yes. get the whispering behind my back in front of me like im too dumb to understand it often. last week it was “really weird…” and “pocohontas robot” i just try to ignore it, in my old days punk personality would think them to be gossiping yuppies anyway..

Donna Williams
Hi Jeannine, they must really fear difference/and or be very bored… I pity their discomfort and that it spills over into yours… just know ‘it’s their shit’ 😉

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com